Skip to main content

Thought for the Day: סגולות -- Not the Shortcut You Were Seeking

One of the many pleasures of being a grandparent is doing homework with your grandchildren. After listening to my grandson's reading homework (he did amazing, thank you), we went outside to have supper (week before Pesach; you understand). After washing, he started drying his hands on his shirt. I told him that he shouldn't do that, because he doesn't want to forget his learning (Mishna Brura 158:45). His older brother burst out with, "That explains why I have stains on my clothes and keep getting low grades!" He does have stains on his clothes, he most certainly does not get low grades; so says the proud grandfather. I also thought it was right clever to turn a bit of mussar into a way to shed responsibility for his actions. They grow up so fast.

But, really; who doesn't like shortcuts? J. Pierrepont Finch had his book, "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying." We have our סגולות... don't we? Having trouble finding a shidduch for your daughter? Hmm... did you make a kiddush celebrating her birth? Having parnassa issues? Eat more bread meals so you  can be careful to use a full cup of water when you wash? Can't find your car keys? Put tzedaka in the right pushkeh. See? Easy shmeezy.

 Yet, you will find that the gemara s teeming with the dire consequences of even refraining from normal השתדלות/efforts: Refraining from teaching your child a trade is tantamount to teaching him to be a professional criminal. Everything is in the hands of heaven; except fear/reverence of heaven and getting the flu. Any delay in actively seeking the soul mate decreed for you from 40 days before your birth may result in you losing her forever. Forget about whether or not סגולות are effective; when do you even have a chance to try one out!? After all, it seems that your waking hours need to be pretty much filled with normal השתדלות just avoiding horrific consequences.

 Please hear me well, there is absolutely nothing wrong/anti-Torah/chukas ha'goyim-ish about סגולות. We do have real, live השתדלות codified into halacha in Shulchan Aruch. Using a brimming full cup when washing for a bread meal is a סגולה for parnassa. Lighting mitzvah candles is a סגולה for having children who will grew up straight and true. Overflowing the havdala cup, being careful with crumbs, not wiping your hands on your garments nor donning them two at a time, and on and on. The wrong/anti-Torah/chakas ha'goyim-ness is looking for easy shmeezy short cuts and trying to outsmart the system to get something for nothing; metagaming the Creator Himself, as it were.

 So, then, what is the function of סגולות? It seems to me that too much success with nothing but oodles of השתדלות can be very dangerous. That kind of success can lead to on of the worst sins: כוחי ועוצם ידי/self-made man syndrome. However, once you are fully engaged going full bore השתדלות, but then top if off with some סגולות -- things which are completely beyond human logic and all the more so, control -- well, then, you can't possibly feel all כוחי ועוצם ידי. Quite the opposite, you are going to have to admit -- with real, live actions in the eyes of all your peers -- that you are not in control.

 So it would seem that סגולות are not really a short cut at all, but barriers to keep you from going off the rails. I therefore humbly add my own suggestion: Next time you are ready to utilize one of those סגולות, make a simple declaration: Behold! I am ready and prepared to admit in front of all Creation... I am not in charge.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Thought for the Day: אוושא מילתא Debases Yours Shabbos

My granddaughter came home with a list the girls and phone numbers in her first grade class.  It was cute because they had made it an arts and crafts project by pasting the list to piece of construction paper cut out to look like an old desk phone and a receiver attached by a pipe cleaner.  I realized, though, that the cuteness was entirely lost on her.  She, of course, has never seen a desk phone with a receiver.  When they pretend to talk on the phone, it is on any relatively flat, rectangular object they find.  (In fact, her 18 month old brother turns every  relatively flat, rectangular object into a phone and walks around babbling into it.  Not much different than the rest of us, except his train of thought is not interrupted by someone else babbling into his ear.) I was reminded of that when my chavrusa (who has children my grandchildrens age) and I were learning about אוושא מילתא.  It came up because of a quote from the Shulchan Aruch HaRav that referred to the noise of תקתוק
Post a Comment
Read more

Thought for the Day: Love in the Time of Corona Virus/Anxiously Awaiting the Mashiach

Two scenarios: Scenario I: A young boy awakened in the middle of the night, placed in the back of vehicle, told not to make any noise, and the vehicle speeds off down the highway. Scenario II: Young boy playing in park goes to see firetruck, turns around to see scary man in angry pursuit, poised to attack. I experienced and lived through both of those scenarios. Terrifying, no? Actually, no; and my picture was never on a milk carton. Here's the context: Scenario I: We addressed both set of our grandparents as "grandma" and "grandpa". How did we distinguish? One set lived less than a half hour's drive; those were there "close grandma and grandpa". The other set lived five hour drive away; they were the "way far away grandma and grandpa". To make the trip the most pleasant for all of us, Dad would wake up my brother and I at 4:00AM, we'd groggily -- but with excitement! -- wander out and down to the garage where we'd crawl
Post a Comment
Read more

Thought for the Day: David HaMelech's Five Stages of Finding HaShem In the World

Many of us "sing" (once you have heard what I call carrying a tune, you'll question how I can, in good conscience, use that verb, even with the quotation marks) Eishes Chayil before the Friday night Shabbos meal.  We feel like we are singing the praises of our wives.  In fact, I have also been to chasunas where the chasson proudly (sometimes even tearfully) sings Eishes Chayil to his new eishes chayil.  Beautiful.  Also wrong.  (The sentiments, of course, are not wrong; just a misunderstanding of the intent of the author of these exalted words.) Chazal (TB Brachos, 10a) tell us that when Sholmo HaMelech wrote the words "She opens her mouth Mwith wisdom; the torah of kindness is on her tongue", that he was referring to his father, Dovid HaMelech, who (I am continuing to quote Chazal here) lived in five worlds and sang a song of praise [to each].  It seems to me that "world" here means a perception of reality.  Four times Dovid had to readjust his perc
Post a Comment
Read more